July 4, 1863, caring for the wounded was the primary mission after the Battle of Gettysburg Download This File

In the weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln accepted an invitation to attend the dedication of the new military cemetery at the battlefield. WBAL's Steve Fermier concludes the 5-part series on the Battle of Gettysburg Download This File

"The Angle" where the Union army held during the decisive battle known as "Pickett's Charge." (Photo by WBAL's Steve Fermier)

Pennsylvania College, now Gettysburg College, became a field hospital where hundreds of wounded Confederate and Union soldiers were given medical treatment (Photo courtesy of Gettysburg College)

The new visitors center at Gettysburg opened just this past year (Photo by WBAL's Steve Fermier)

On July 2, 1863, Confederate forces had pushed the Union Army eastward through the town of Gettysburg from Seminary Ridge to the "higher ground" at Kulp's Hill and Little Round Top.

That's where a fierce encounter left the Army of the Potomac on the ropes and gave Gen. Robert E. Lee the hope that he could deliver a coup de grace, and bring the war to a rapid end.

As it turned out, that did not happen.

This week marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle ever on the North American continent fought a few miles from the Maryland border.

Special events commemorating the event are being held all week, and through the summer, in and around the community.

As Professor Allen Guelzo sees it a century and a half later, the future of the United States of America very much hung in the balance for a few days in July 1863, in a patch of farmland and woods northwest of Baltimore.

Confederate forces that had moved into southern Pennsylvania from Maryland under Gen. Robert E. Lee began the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1 by pushing the federal troops from a stronghold on Seminary Ridge and almost breaking through their lines two days later.

But, the Union forces held on July 3 when more than 10,000 mostly Virginian and North Carolina troops stormed across a mile of open country and were stopped at "The Angle."

The monumental encounter meant the end of the Confederate advance into northern territory.

Dr. Guezlo, professor and director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College, has made the New York Times' bestseller list with his recently published book, "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion."

The Battle of Gettysburg cost more than 51,000 lives on both sides, more than those killed in the Korean conflict and nearly the numbers of Americans killed in the entire Vietnam War, according to records from the U.S. Army.

Go HERE for "Stone Sentinels," a compendium of battlefield locations, facts and figures.

Listen to the five-part series by WBAL's Steve Fermier outlining the events of each day at Gettysburg this week, largely through the research by Dr. Guezlo.